Creative Services Manager in London

We operate a hybrid working approach, which allows you to manage your time between home and office.

Be part of something big. We are Pernod Ricard, a leading company in the global spirits industry with over 19,000 employees globally. We own 16 of the world’s top 100 Spirits Brands and hold one of the most prestigious and comprehensive brand portfolios in the industry with 240 premium brands available in over 160 countries.

Here in the UK, Pernod Ricard is made up of 4 businesses:

• Pernod Ricard UK, which markets, sells and distributes our products in the UK
• Chivas Brothers, responsible for the production and management of our award-winning Scotch whisky portfolio
• Pernod Ricard Global Travel Retail, the global and EMEA home of the group’s duty free, air travel and cruises business
• The Absolut Group, the brand owner of our global white spirits portfolio

We are an organisation of 2,000 employees in the UK, headquartered in London, in a brand-new office designed with sustainability, ‘conviviality’ and collaboration in mind.

Your new team: This position sits in our Pernod Ricard UK (PRUK) business. Our diverse population of 300+ passionate employees have been creating conviviality since 2001, bringing our premium brands and unforgettable experiences to the UK. At PRUK, we have a culture that blends performance and conviviality: we are recognised as an open and diverse business with a firm commitment to our employees’ wellness, inclusion and safety and to making a positive impact on our industry and environment.

Note, this is a fixed term contract for 12 months.

The Creative Services Manager is responsible for the commercial, operational, and strategic leadership of the Northern Europe studio (TheMix NE) and its relationship with our third-party agency partner, OLIVER. This role ensures strong commercial governance, operational excellence, and high levels of client satisfaction across Northern Europe.

Entity and Operational Management:

• Own and manage the operational best practices for the NE studio, serving 11 markets (UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
• Partner with Entity Leads to grow and scale studio output, identifying opportunities to win work from other agencies and internal stakeholders.
• Drive efficiencies by reducing duplication of creative assets and promoting smarter asset management and reuse strategies.
• Monitor and report on performance KPIs, ensuring measurable improvements in productivity and cost efficiency.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for all internal stakeholders (“clients”) briefing the studio.
• Proactively resolving issues and ensuring a consistently high standard of service delivery.
• Establish and embed a structured feedback framework beyond the annual client satisfaction survey conducted by OLIVER.

Resource and Project Management:

• Lead the day-to-day management of the client services team across content, social and production projects.
• Oversee the resource management for our two studios; Cologne and London, ensuring deadlines are adhered to.
• Manage our black book of talent, communicating and resourcing freelancers as and when required.
• Overall say on project budgets created by the Project Managers, making commercially sound decisions about outsourcing, resourcing and deadlines.
• Provide recommendations for any resource bottlenecks.
• Adhoc project management for Media & Culture briefs ensuring the projects are delivered on time and to budget.

Commercial Management:

• Own and maintain all commercial aspects of the relationship with OLIVER.
• Lead the studio invoicing process in collaboration with OLIVER and the PR UK Finance team, ensuring accurate cross-charging and financial transparency.
• Identify opportunities for cost optimisation and value creation without compromising output quality.
• Review the monthly MI reports and raise any concerns back to the supplier/business for further investigation.
• Facilitate regular check-ins to identify improvement opportunities in ways of working, communication, and creative output.

Your blend of talent: This position could be right for you if you have:

• Creative agency & project management experience (ideally in-house) and happy to spin many plates at once.
• Prior knowledge of the intricacies of the Creative Process; including planning, execution/production, client liaising, artworking and reporting.
• Studio operational and commercial awareness to understand and advise stakeholders on the nuances working with a third party agency.
• Prior experience of using a range of different project management and resourcing tools.
• Financial experience of invoicing due to the complexities in the recharging process.

Our mix of benefits: For your health, we offer private medical insurance, critical illness cover and an optional healthcare cash plan and dental insurance. Our lifestyle benefits options include 28 days’ annual holiday, your employee pension, share incentive plan, family care, season ticket loans, free mortgage advice, payroll giving and more!

We have regular events in our very own office bar, employee-run networks, a culture of flexibility and trust and a variety of tools and resources to help you focus on your wellbeing and mental fitness.

Conviviality: the Pernod Ricard Way: We have our own way of doing things. We call it conviviality! It’s our way of being, and something unique you feel and experience when working for Pernod Ricard. We’re committed to conviviality, and with this, you’ll be Proud to Belong to our Pernod Ricard family.

We’re committed to diversity and inclusion. People are at the heart of everything we do at Pernod Ricard and are the foundation of our collective spirit as ‘Créateurs de Convivialité’. We promote diversity and inclusion throughout our business and supply chain.

In our culture, we want to create diverse teams in which our differences contribute to our success. Therefore, all are welcome at Pernod Ricard, regardless of your religious beliefs or personal choices on the consumption of alcohol.